Employee

Engagement (2)

• Dr. Joy Tweed

• Associate Lecturer

• Joy.Tweed@lca.anglia.ac.uk

1
Schedule for remainder of module

14th March Employee engagement (2) Talent

management and global HRM
(summary)
21st March Managing Change (1) first half
Presentation preparation in groups
28th March Presentations (5 groups)
4th April Managing Change (2) first half
Presentations (3 groups) from 7.30 pm
11th April Managing Change (3) first half
Assignment preparation - guidance
2nd May Individual tutorials available
Material relating to CSR will be available
online for individual study
Employee Engagement
‘Employees who work for engaging organisations get an
organisation they feel proud to work for, managers who
are more likely to listen and care for them, leaders who
listen to and inspire them, more opportunities for
personal growth and teams that support each other.
They are likely to perceive the deal they get from their
employer as positive and they get lower levels of stress
and a better work life balance’
MacLeod Report, 2009
Employee voice
‘Employees’ views are sought out; they are listened to
and see that their opinions count and make a
difference….. A strong sense of listening and of
responsiveness permeates the organisation, enabled by
effective communication’. Macleod report 2009

A strong employee voice is dependent on factors such

as:
Trust
Openness
Approachability of leaders
Company Practices
– Communications
• Channels of communication are two-way, such as information
disclosure and listening to employees including all remote
associates – home-workers, part-timers and sales people
• ‘Build in feedback mechanisms and respond to feedback. This
shows concern, involvement and shared ownership of issues’
(Cook, 2008: 134)
• Be honest, tell whole story and ensure consistent messages
• More engaged when employees know what is going on, why it is
important and how it contributes to organisational purpose
• Greater business understanding can positively impact on both
efficiency and motivation
Industrial Relations v Employee Relations

• Industrial Relations – its focus is the regulation (control,

adaptation and adjustment) of the employment
relationship which is shaped by legal, political, economic,
social and historical contexts. (Edwards 1996)

• Employee Relations - reflects the development of more

diverse employment patterns, the growth of high tech and
commercial sectors, reduced levels of unionisation and
use of management strategies aimed at individualising
the employment relationship.(Salaman 2000)
National systems vary …
• High union v low union membership

Sweden: Has high union membership at 71% (down from 86% in 1995), one
of the most unionised countries
France: Has one of the lowest union membership rates in Europe (around
8% of workforce), although in the Public Sector the rate is almost double
(15%). Despite this, have significant power and traditionally mobilise large
numbers of workers for industrial action (though waning in recent years

• single-employer v multi-employer bargaining

• autocratic v involving (participative) management style
What are Trade Unions?
• Collective organisations made up of employees

• Aim to ensure the interests of employees are respected

and furthered

• Independent of management and employer

• Independent of government

What have the Trade Unions done for us?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrjySOFLXgg
4 minutes and 33 seconds
Trade Unions - Types

• Craft… Such as the National Union of

Mineworkers, National Union of Teachers

• General… Such as UNITE (care sector)

• Industrial… Union of Construction, Allied

Trades and Technicians
(Gov.UK, 2017)
(Economicshelp, 2018)
 Employee Participation and Involvement
Compared
• Employee Participation
• Mainly pluralist
• Inspired by government
and/or workforce with some
control delegated to
workers
• Aims to harness collective
employee inputs
• Collective representation
• Management and
organisational hierarchies
chain of command broken.
• Employee Involvement
• Mainly unitarist
• Inspired and controlled by
management
• Oriented towards
encouraging individual
employee inputs
• Directed to
responsibilities of
individual employees
• Management and
organisation structures
flatter but hierarchies
undisturbed.
Employee Participation and Involvement
Compared… continued…
• Employee Participation
• involvement of employee
representatives
• Decision making at higher
organisational levels
• Plurality of interests
recognised and machinery
for their resolution
provided.
• Aims to distribute strategic
influence beyond
management.
• Employee Involvement
• Employees are often passive
recipients of information
and decisions already made.
• Decisions tend to be task
based.
• Assumes common interests
between employer and
employees.
• Aims to concentrate
strategic influence among
management
Employee Participation Structures

• Works Councils

• Employee Representation on company

boards

• Joint Consultative Committees

• European Works Councils

Employee Involvement Practices

• Effective communication structures e.g. Team meetings;

cascading information; newsletters; electronic notice boards
etc.

• Use of HR practices such as training and performance

appraisal

• Social events
 Enabling Engagement
Assimilating the drivers for engagement
and understanding how to design and apply
an organisational engagement strategy.
Ahoy! Is Your Boat Still Sinking
• Did you know that only 32.5%
employees are currently
engaged, and
• 2 out of 10 are actively
disengaged
• Watch and learn from the
follow-up video to ‘Who’s
Sinking Your Boat’, and you
might discover the secrets of
how to increase the number of
‘organisational paddlers’.
https://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=FvDKh31k1fM
Kelleher, 2016
Interpreting WIFI Scores
Section Indicators Overall Predictors
1. Well-being 5. Engagement indicator
2. I nformation 32 + | high degree
3. Fairness 22-31 | average degree
4. I nvolvement 5-21 | low degree
Engagement indicator
75+ | high degree Overall predictor
332+ | high degree
55-74 | average degree
242-331 | average degree
10-54 | low degree
45-241 | low degree
Activity – WIFI Engagement
In small groups review
your WIFI scores:
1.Share your section
indicator and overall
predictor scores
2.What, if any, scores are
common within the
group?
3.Taking the most
common, list the actions
that could be taken to
enhance engagement
Implementing
Engagement Strategies
1. Appoint programme sponsor and define what needs to happen
2. Identify a possible work breakdown structure (see next slide)
to identify the discrete work packages that are required
3. Decide structure and make-up of individual project teams
4. Allocate resources, establish leader and team members and
agree roles and responsibilities
5. Set out plan showing 30, 60 and 90 day milestones Implement
and monitor progress against plan
6. Evaluate process checking completion of each work package
Cook, 2008: 71-74
Developing
Engagement Strategies
• Project managers use work
breakdown structure (WBS) to
break a project into
manageable sections/tasks.
• Goal is to use WBS to achieve
the project objectives and
facilitate efficient management
to monitor the project in terms
of budget and schedule.
• WBS also provides the
foundation for detailed cost
estimation plus schedule
development and control.
 Embracing Engagement
Integrating engagement practices into
HR strategy in order to optimise employee
contribution and sustain organisational retention.
Maximising Satisfaction
and Contribution
• Watch The X-model of
employee engagement – a
specific and compelling model
for articulating what employee
engagement is
https://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=gZ3wxgog4nc
• In groups, discuss and identify
three key messages that the
video suggests will optimise
organisational engagement
Blessing White, 2018 • Present in open session.
HR Engagement Practices
Vance (2006) suggests there are six
areas of HR practice which should
be aligned to optimise employee
engagement:
1. Job and task design
2. Recruitment
3. Employee selection
4. Training and development
5. Compensation
6. Performance management
Vance, R.J. (2006). Employee Engagement and Commitment A
guide to understanding, measuring and increasing engagement in
your organization. Alexandria, VA: SHRM Foundation
Job and Task Design
(Vance, 2006)
Recruiting for Engagement
(Vance, 2006)
Effective Employee Selection
(Vance, 2006)
Training and Development
(Vance, 2006)
Strategic Compensation
(Vance, 2006)
Effective Performance
Management (Vance, 2006)
 Showcasing Engagement
Locating organisational practices – interventions
and strategies – that highlight and focus
employees’ attention on what is important
to create an engagement culture.
Employee Engagement
Interventions (The 10 Cs of Employee Engagement, Seijits and Crim, 2006)

1. Connect – leaders must show they value employees

2. Career – leaders should provide challenging and
meaningful work with opportunities for career
advancement
3. Clarity – leaders must communicate a clear vision.
4. Convey – leaders clarify their expectations about
employees and provide feedback on their functioning in
the organisation
5. Congratulate – exceptional leaders give recognition for
strong performance
Employee Engagement
Interventions (The 10 Cs of Employee Engagement, Seijits and Crim, 2006)

6. Contribute – good leaders help people see and feel how

they are contributing to the organisation’s success
7. Control – leaders create opportunities for employees to
exercise control over work flow and pace
8. Collaborate – great leaders build teams that create an
environment of trust and collaboration
9. Credibility – leaders should strive to maintain a company’s
reputation and demonstrate high ethical standards
10. Confidence – good leaders help create confidence by
being exemplars of high ethical and performance
standards
Barriers to Engagement (Purcell, 2009)
• Job insecurity
• Unfairness, particularly in reward and pay systems
• Jobs with no space i.e. repetitive work with short cycle
times
• Highly stressful jobs with little flexibility or autonomy
• Poor line management and bullying
• Working for long periods of time without a break
• Lack of trust particularly in senior management
 • Establish receptive foundation by
Engagement creating an ‘engagement culture’
Actions • Communicate the value of employee
engagement through company
communications and statements
• Develop intervention strategies that
embrace the main drivers for
engagement, which are:
• Meaningful work

• Voice and involvement

• Leadership communication and vision

• Supportive work environment

• Person-job fit

• Line management style

Key Lesson Summary
Employee Engagement is:
1. Driven by key engagement drivers – work, people, quality of
life, opportunities, total rewards and company practices – that
enable employees to optimise their contribution
2. Focused when priority areas for engaging employees are
clearly identified
3. Optimised by engagement strategies that enable employee
contribution and performance
4. Enhanced when engagement practices are integrated into HR
planning, and
5. Associated with high levels of performance reflecting employee
commitment and effort
Integrating Global HRM Practices
Brewster et al (2016) International Human Resource Management

Global vs local debate

• Need to manage dual pressures of global integration and local
responsiveness
• A strong country of origin effect maybe seen where the HRM
practices in a MNC’s subsidiaries closely resemble that of the
NMC parent, rather than local practices
• Kostova (1999) introduced idea of ‘institutional distance’
• The distance between the country institutional profile of the country
of origin and country of operation - an index of the regulatory,
normative and cognitive institutions of a country.
• ‘Cognitive institutions’ – established and taken for granted routines
of thought and action
• Where a practice is not consistent with the recipient country’s
cognitive institutions then the MNC subsidiary will face difficulties.
Hybridisation
‘A complex pattern of creating new management practices
through simultaneous processes of highly selective adoption,
transfer and local adaptation’

• Resistance to the direct transfer of practice may be seen

negatively

• However, hybridisation can be seen as co-negotiated strategy

‘the careful choices if specific elements of HRM practices
for global standardisation, modification of global standards, or
localisation, in parent firms’ approach to subsidiary-HRM
practices based upon a process of optimisation.

(Chung et al (2014) in Brewster et al. (2016) page 443)

Core HRM practices as
mechanisms for global integration
• Management development and global leadership

• Global performance management

• Global talent management

Global Performance Management
4 core processes
• Funnelling upwards of selective high performing individuals
• Summation of individual performance metrics to next vertical
level using common performance metrics
• Conversion of individual metrics into a form of metric that can
be forwarded to next vertical level
• Sharpening or recalibration of macro-level firm strategic
performance metrics
Global Talent Management
‘all organisational activities for the purpose of attracting,
selecting, developing and retaining the best employees in the
most strategic role’
(Scullion et al 2010 in Brewster et al. p452)
• Identifying and recruiting talent
• Attracting talent
• Minimising attrition through engagement and retention
• Identifying key internal talent
• Managing talent flows
• Developing employees
• Delivering performance
References

Brewster C., Sparrow, P., Vernon G and Houldsworth E (2016). International

Human Resource Management (4th Edition). London; CIPD.
Macleod, D. and Clarke, N. (2009). Engaging for Success: Enhancing performance
through employee engagement. A Report to government.